


Quality Time

by Kissa



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ace Reader, Adoption, Cheesy, Dad-daughter relationship, Gen, M/M, Silly, hidden superpowers, soft, teen reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10100714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa
Summary: Steve takes in a stray who rewards him in many ways for his kindness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Steve aces the "Dad does my make-up!" challenge. Or at least, this is how I imagine things would go.
> 
> Also, reader calls Spider-Man "Sipdre-Man" to tease him, it's not a typo.

You had no idea how you had ended up having to go live with Steve Rogers. _Captain fucking America, yo!_ You didn’t talk like that in front of him because he seemed old school, the kind who startles when they hear girls swear.  
  
You had been previously carted around the different SHIELD bases all over the world. They didn’t really know what to do with you. You had seen too much and your parents were at the other end of the galaxy. You were evidence and research material.  
  
After thorough examinations, SHIELD scientists had concluded you had no superpowers even though your parents both did. How humiliating.  
  
How convenient. The less SHIELD knew, the better. Your covert refusal to manifest any of your abilities had paid off. Only, now they really didn’t know what to do with you.

Tony Stark had been the one to point out that SHIELD and the Avengers could not keep a civilian minor in their care without it breaking a truckload of international conventions and human rights agreements. There had to be some paperwork justifying their keeping track of you and your whereabouts. They had already interfered by changing your school and having you transferred to the same program Peter Parker was studying in. He was on Tony’s own list of people to watch out for too.  
  
Steve had suggested someone adopt you. Everyone had thought that legally, it was a good idea, but no one had volunteered. So Steve did.

Not long after, you received the news. A man called Stephen Strange, a sorcerer of sorts, had been to the other end of space and had met your parents. He told you they were never coming back. They were alive and well and more powerful than ever, but they were protecting the Universe from evil.  
  
You cried for days, inconsolable, and Steve did his best to help you deal. When the pain of being left behind like some unwanted baggage ebbed out, you felt sorry for him. How ungrateful you must have been, making him feel like he was nothing to you, or not enough, when he in fact had been nothing but generous and good to you. Taking you in even though his life was not exactly accommodating of a teen and making room for you in his life, in his house and in his heart.  
  
It wasn’t perfect, but way better than being locked in some off the grid compound and never being able to walk into a Starbucks when you craved a disgustingly sweet and faintly coffee-flavoured drink.  
  
There were rules, which you understood and stuck to. It wasn’t because Steve is discipline-obsessed. Actually, Steve hates rules that suck. But he explained to you that knowing that you’re safe and away from harm helps him do his job well.  
  
There were of course attempts to get to you, but they all failed because Steve was never there to witness you using your powers. It used to scare and disgust you before; now you have no qualms about using them. Because now you know you’re on your own, you’re easily the most powerful being walking the Earth and all these people who’ve been nothing but nice to you are your new family. Most people at large are insufferable, like the kind of cousins you only see once a year when they ransack your room and smash all your toys. Some of your new friends, like Clint and Wanda, are nice to you and funny. And Steve is a doll. Taking his dad responsibilities very seriously. But the only way for you to live a somewhat normal life is to never reveal your powers.  
  
You read up on Steve and you dug up old memoirs of people who lived in his neighbourhood before the war came. You tracked down survivors from that time and spoke to them. And it helped you understand how come this man out of time, whom everyone else treated like a broken toy that somehow still worked, had in him the emotional wealth of sharing his life with a complete stranger in need.  
  
You had seen the way people lived in his neighbourhood back in the day. The struggle, the poverty. The closely-knit community and the helping one another and sharing everything, stuff replaced in the present day by paranoia and fear of strangers.  
  
You had seen the few old pictures of skinny Steve and Bucky. They were inseparable. Wherever Steve was, Bucky would be too. And you’d noticed the way they looked at each other.  
  
It was so gay.  
  
But you knew Steve had also been in love with women so he had to be at least bi. Well. Not that it was any of your business. You were a child not just in relation to his age, but also legally. Also how sick was it to lust after your dad?! The sickest.  
  
Although oblivious to the path your feelings and thoughts were taking, Steve seemed to think that cure by over-exposure was the way to go, because he would walk around shirtless, cooking breakfast in just his running pants or drink coffee with the top part of his combat suit hanging open around his hips before putting on a white tank top and closing the suit to show up for a mission.  
  
But the fact was, when Steve was home and he had time for you, he was all there. And that was more than anyone had given you.

***

  
  
“Grab your go bag and go to the roof. ETA: 5 minutes.” The text read. You were on the loo. Finishing quickly, you went to your closet, got your bag and all your devices, switched off the electricity in the whole house and rushed to the roof, where a Quinjet landed briefly. You got on and sat in the back.  
  
“BUCKY?!” You exclaimed, seeing who was sitting next to you in the semi-darkness.  
  
Then you noticed his whole left arm was missing and the gruesomely torn stump had embers on it. And blood.  
  
“Oh my god! Dad, have you seen this?!” You panicked.  
  
That was the first time the term slipped out. It didn’t sound unnatural.  
  
“Steve?” Bucky asked, staring at you too. “Have we met?” He said to you.  
  
“No, no, sorry.” You said and introduced yourself. “Steve adopted me. I’m not his actual daughter.”

“Oh. Still. Nice to meet you.” Bucky said, extending his hand.  
  
You shook it, muttering “this is so surreal” under  your breath.  
  
Bucky gave you half a smile.  
  
When the Quinjet landed, Steve told you this was Wakanda; he and Bucky, and by extension, you, were fugitives and King T’Challa had offered you his protection. Two members of the Dora Milaje came and one showed you to a luxurious apartment and told you to wait for Steve there. The other whisked Steve and Bucky down a brightly lit, restricted access corridor. Oh great. More research facilities. You were glad you were not part of that particular arrangement.  
  
Steve joined you much later, looking really tired. You didn’t press him for what had happened, trusting that if he said you were safe, you were indeed safe from whatever was chasing him.  
  
“I’m so glad I could get you before they did. They keep their enemies on a submerged prison out at sea. No sunlight, no fresh air.” Steve said.  
  
Food was brought to you and you served some onto two plates. Initially Steve refused, but then he sat at the table with you and began to eat.  
  
“Aren’t you curious to know why we’re hiding out here?” He asked.  
  
“I’m dying to know, but I figured you’d tell me when you thought it was relevant.”  
  
“Tony and other Avengers sided with the Government, saying we need oversight. There was a treaty, asking us to surrender our agency to the UN. Like a new World Security Council.Then some guy framed Bucky for blowing up the UN. And Tony and the UN wanted to execute Bucky without trial. So I was against that. It ended ugly. Tony found out the Winter Soldier killed his parents and tried to murder Bucky where he stood. I got in the way.”  
  
“But Bucky isn’t the Winter Soldier.” You said.  
  
“No, he’s not. But the programming Hydra put in his mind is still there. And he’s going to get himself frozen again until they manage to get that out of his brain.” Steve explained, looking like he crumbled in on himself as he spoke.  
  
“Is he frozen already?” You asked.  
  
“No, he rests in the medical ward I think.” Steve answered.  
  
You sighed.  
  
“Call him over. It’s been… what, seventy years since you last talked to each other and weren’t in the middle of a fight? Time is precious, Steve. Get Bucky.”  
  
Steve got up and left almost running, as though that had been his wish all along and he’d only been waiting for someone to give him the verbal permission for it.

So for that evening, the three of you sat and dined together like a family from a Nutella commercial. You watched Steve cut Bucky’s food for him and help him as though they’d been together for tens of years. It was impossible not to hear all that wasn’t being said between them.  
  
You went to bed super early and asked the Dora Milaje to give you a smartphone that was location-protected. When you got it, you went online. As soon as your status button went green, you had a message from Peter.  
  
_“Where r u? Ur dad screwed up.”_ He typed.   
  
_“Doesn’t matter where I am. And u got royally fucked by ur sugar daddy.”_  
  
_“He’s not my… well he did pay for my new suit and app…”_  
  
_“Sipdre Man, u got served. Ask **daddy** about the Raft. That’s where he keeps those who don’t do what he says.” _

_“I will! I was asking myself what I was doing in the middle of two old guys beefing. I barely made the deadline for our tech project. Did you send something in?”_

_“Yep. On time, too.”_

_“Wanna hang out and show me?”_  
  
“Can’t. My dad is getting boinked and I don’t wanna CB.”  
  
“OH.” Peter typed. “When r u coming back?”

_“As soon as ur crew stops being rude to dad.”_

  
***

Bucky did go back into cryo-freeze. But it’s only temporary and while T’Challa’s scientists and Wanda work to get the Soldier out of Bucky’s mind safely, Steve started on the design for the new arm.

  
You saw him one evening, after everyone went to bed, bent over a graphic tablet, cursing and periodically leaving his chair, pacing around in frustration.  
  
You entered the room and walk over to him in you PJs and bed socks.  
  
“I thought you were sleeping already.” He said.  
  
“I got up to go to the loo. Whatchu drawing there?” You asked.  
  
“Bucky’s new arm. I can draw it on paper just fine, but on this thing? I’m hopeless. And it needs to be 3D so they can build it.”  
  
“Can I have a look?” You asked.  
  
Steve let you and gave you the pen.  
  
“Aaaaaaah. I know. I can help. This is the program Peter showed me. It’s the latest shit in 3D rendering. Few people know how to use it. Lucky for you, I do! But I need your help too.”  
  
“Sure. If I can watch and you’ll explain what you are doing. I learn quickly if I’m shown the steps.” Steve said.  
  
“I know. This is massive fun.” You said, beginning to show him how the program worked and what it did. “You’re going to explain the design to me so we can make an exploded view. Then we’ll adjust the measurements and the way the pieces join. And we’re going to print a 3D model out of some cheap material and test it. The design needs to add functionality, not take from it.”  
  
And that was how you made Steve the happiest he’d been in a while. He loved working with you, now that he knew he would get somewhere and be able to actually produce the new arm the way Bucky had requested it and the way Steve had imagined it.

As time went by, Steve got more and more comfortable around you and the weird attraction you had for him went away, leaving room only for the warm, comforting kind of love that was indeed the kind you had for your dad. Steve was filling that position perfectly.  
  
He cooked for you and made sure you stayed on top of your assignments. Drove you to the mall and to parties. Wakandans were very welcoming with the King’s personal friends.  
  
Almost a year went by before international relations cooled down and the UN scrapped the Sokovia Accords. An investigation had been started to identify the vulnerabilities exposed by Zemo’s plan and how to counter them. But the Avengers were scattered and without a leader. There had been no legal charges against Captain Rogers and the ones against James Buchanan Barnes were dropped. Tony went live on YouTube in a video urging Steve to come out of hiding because there was no more bad blood between the two of them.  
  
“I have the best way for us to come out of hiding.” You said.  
  
***  
  
“Hi everyone and welcome to my Youtube Channel! Today I’m gonna be doing the “Dad does my Make Up” Challenge!” You said, all excited. “This is my dad, Steve.”  
  
“Hi,” Steve said, already looking a bit intimidated by the many makeup and beauty products on your table. “I’m going to try to do a good job.”  
  
“The rules of the challenge are simple, he has to make the decisions along the way and I’m not allowed to give him any tips,” you stated the rules. “So no one says we’re cheating, I will say upfront that my dad is ex-military but he’s a super rad illustrator too, so I have faith he’ll carry out his mission well.”  
  
You knew that the word “mission” would frame the task at hand as a challenge for Steve’s mind to strategise and win at.  
  
He looked at all the products, chose a few and lined them up on the table in the exact order he intended to use them.  
  
“I already washed my face and moisturised so the canvas is prepared. Now Steve just has to do the make-up.” You said and let Steve work.  
  
“I’ll start with this white stuff that says it’s a primer. I suppose it’s like in painting, it goes on first,” Steve said. “First I’ll try some on the back of my hand… good dispersion as I suspected. For the eye area I’m gonna use this one that seems more delicate.”  
  
He got the first step right.  
  
“I’m gonna take this flat, compact brush and use foundation next, and then use this sponge to even out the texture.”  
  
You looked at the first comments on the video.  
  
_Angel239lynn wrote: not fair, he’s good at this. But I guess he’s an artist so it was to b xpected._

_TonyMFStark: Steve, what the hell, you’re in Red Hook?! What in ninja hell?!_

ArrowGuyxxx: of course Steve would be #DadGoals too. FML. F all of our Ls.  
  
_Ginny45: Ur dad is HOTTTT! Is he single?!_

“The YouTube nation wants to know if you’re single.” You tell Steve, who’s now applying highlighter on your cheekbones with a fan brush.  
  
“Sorry, I’m not. I’ve asked Bucky to marry me once the Soldier is gone and he is back in the world.”  
  
“Yay! Two dads are twice the fun.” You said. “I loved Bucky. He seemed cool.”  
  
_TonyMFStark: DIBS on Best Man!_  
  
“Tony, you did try to murder Bucky!” Steve said into the camera. “It’s up to him whom he chooses.” Then he softened visibly. “But I’ll put in a good word. I want my friends to accept Bucky too.”

He was done with your make-up now and you turned to look into the camera. He had done a flawless 40s style look, with darker colour lips, minimal shadow on the eyelids and a peachy-hued blush. It was lovely and you hugged him. 

“So? What did you think? Leave us your comments below and tell us how you think my dad did!” You said, to end the video. “And don’t forget to say congratulations, my dad is getting married! Oh… Steve?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Are you gonna put me in a dress?”  
  
“You can choose whatever fancy outfit you want. I don’t care. I just want you there.” Steve said.  
  
“And this is why my dad is the best.” you said, ending the video and switching off the camera.

  
  
***

  
  
You were at a bridal salon, trying on a bridesmaid dress along with Steve, who was trying on suits.

He walked out of the dressing room in an all white tux that looked amazing on his perfect proportions.  
  
“You gonna wear white for your wedding? Dad that is so cheesy! I love it!” You said. “Though, * _ahem*_.”  
  
“Bucky and I haven’t gone that far yet. We just made out and agreed to wait until he was free of the Soldier.” Steve said.  
  
“OMG that is SO romantic.” You said, miming a swoon. “What do you think of this dress?” You asked, showing him what you currently had on. You actually loved this one.  
  
“I think it’s beautiful, darling. And I’ll even do your make-up to go with the dress.”  
  
“Clint was right, holy fuck. You are #Dad Goals.”  
  
“Hey, young lady. Language.” Steve said, trying and failing to keep a stern look on his face.

 

END.

 


End file.
